Tornado Kills One in Southern Oklahoma

A powerful tornado struck southern Oklahoma on Wednesday evening, damaging two factories, flipping cars and killing at least one person, according to the authorities.

The tornado cut through Marshall County, Okla., around 5 p.m., striking the factories, J & I Manufacturing, which makes truck beds and bodies, and Oklahoma Steel & Wire, according to Robert Chaney, the county’s emergency management director.

A number of cars that were hit were “balled up from the force of the tornado,” Mr. Chaney said, and one was “up in a tree.”

He said the person who was killed was found on the side of a road about one-quarter mile from J & I Manufacturing. Mr. Chaney said he was not sure how many people had been injured. The authorities, he said, had set up a command center in a Walmart parking lot in Madill, Okla., but rescue vehicles were being blocked by fallen power lines on main roads.

He said the factories that had been hit were open on Wednesday, despite the coronavirus pandemic that has closed businesses across the country. He added that most businesses in the county were operating normally.

“Everybody is taking the basic precautions that we can,” Mr. Chaney said. “But basically everybody is working.”